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Primary Education (1959) (page numbers in brackets) Notes on the text
Part 1 Historical
Part 2 The Primary Schools
Part 3 The Fields of Learning
Part 4 The Special Problems of Wales
Index (331-334) |
Primary Education (1959)
Suggestions for the consideration of teachers and others concerned with the work of primary schools London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1959
[page 289] (a) Geography and Natural History considered together It has been customary when considering the teaching of these subjects, even in the primary school, to treat them as distinct fields of study although both are concerned with the exploration and understanding of the world. However, the knowledge which young children gather about their own surroundings and about the world at large is neither acquired nor organised as a number of differentiated school subjects. It is very doubtful whether such distinctions are appropriate until children reach the upper classes of the junior school. Even at that age the schemes of work for geography and natural history often include the same topics for study and, in both subjects, the children's work gains much of its vitality from the impact of direct experience and from first-hand studies of the real thing. Systematic studies of the weather, the soil or the distribution of animals on local farms, for example, may belong as much to one subject as to the other. A visit to the docks may lead children to study the transport of merchandise along local roads and railways or it may lead them to carry out experiments on flotation and the Plimsoll line. Geography and natural history, therefore, are considered together in this chapter and are only treated separately when work in the junior school is discussed. Children of primary school age are intensely curious about their surroundings as every adult knows when he is subjected to their searching and repeated questioning. They have an alertness of eye which is attracted by colour and movement and by both the familiar and the curious. They enjoy exploring their surroundings not only through sight and sound but also through the senses of touch, smell and taste, senses which sometimes become dulled in adults. They have a keen ear for sound, an appreciation of repetitive and rhythmic phrases. They collect [page 290] avidly all manner of things, living and non-living; shells, pebbles, bus tickets, wild flowers, butterflies, fossils and postage stamps, car numbers and the names of railway engines. At first children collect anything at random according to the dictates of the moment and make no attempt to classify or order their collections. The roots of a child's knowledge of geography and natural history lie in these vivid undifferentiated experiences of childhood. As they grow older they notice similarities and differences and begin to group the things they collect; they enjoy factual information for its own sake and their interests are sustained over longer periods. These characteristics are possessed in varying measure by all boys and girls of primary school age. They suggest to the teacher ways to develop an interest in work which can serve as an introduction to the adult fields of science and they may also provide the beginnings of a permanent interest in some branch of geography or natural history. Children's interests as shown by their questions and spontaneous experiments are, at this age particularly, a good guide to the appropriate topics for study, and the teacher's function becomes that of directing their attention, suggesting methods of learning, providing suitable opportunities for study, assisting them in the organisation of their knowledge and, in all this, of making his own unique contribution to their knowledge through skilful exposition and illustration, questioning and demonstration. Curiosity and the spirit of inquiry are not difficult to rouse in children where woods and streams are to be explored or a farm or pond is to be visited; and curiosity itself is quickened by the wonder which many children feel for some of the magnificent and splendid phenomena of the world - the moon and stars, the sea and volcanoes - for the miracle of living creatures and for stories of man's heroic discoveries and inventions. The common ground of geography and natural history is, then, the world beyond the classroom and especially that part of it which can be visited and studied by children and teacher together. The common method of study is one of careful observation and honest recording of what is actually seen by the observers; it is a method which applies equally to investigations carried out during a visit or expedition and to those made subsequently when specimens brought back to school are studied at leisure. Later sections of this chapter refer both to visits made for the purpose of first-hand inquiry and to the various forms of [page 291] record which children may find suitable in particular circumstances. Some general remarks, however, will not be out of place here. (b) Visits and expeditions If any visit, whether to a wood, pond, museum, park, quarry, brick works, farm or railway station is to be successful it will demand considerable preliminary preparation both by the teacher and children. The group should be of such a size that the teacher can organise it with confidence and talk to its members from time to time. He needs to be familiar with the route, to note the time the journey takes and to be aware of any dangers that might be encountered. Permission to cross private land may also have to be obtained. The farmer, forestry guide, lock keeper or whoever is meeting the party will have to be briefed as to the nature of the work the class is attempting, the questions the children may ask and the type of information they are seeking in order that a willing guide shall not discourse at length on matters beyond their comprehension and outside their interest. By careful preliminary discussion with the class the teacher can ensure that they have a clear idea of the purpose of the expedition and of the behaviour that is expected of them. Group work will have to be planned, work sheets drawn up and, if necessary, a simple map of the route and area duplicated. It is important also to consider what kind of notes can be made on the spot by children of different ages and abilities. These preparations, while not depriving children of the joy of discovery and novelty, enable them to derive maximum benefit from an expedition and minimise the complaints so often levelled against visitors to the countryside. One visit or expedition usually provides junior children with ample work for weeks to follow, but it sometimes happens that when children set about making a record they find their information is incomplete or inaccurate. The need for verification or for additional knowledge provides a sound reason for a second visit. Progress will be looked for in this as in other forms of study; from a series of out of door inquiries the children should acquire both the attitude of mind and the techniques which make further work of this kind increasingly effective. (c) Recording Children, both individually and in groups, usually make some [page 292] record of their work. Talking and conversation, both with their teacher and with each other, are essential for clarifying ideas and, as children grow older, for separating the facts that are relevant to the matter in hand from those that are not. Discussion between teacher and children about the most sensible way of recording and the most suitable media for the purpose is, therefore, most valuable. It is likely to make all the difference between success and failure when children are allowed reasonable freedom of choice in this matter and not compelled merely to copy the teacher's notes or sketches. In the actual process of expressing what they know they will often be encouraged to closer observation; for example, when drawing or modelling a port or when recording the behaviour of a beetle they may need to find out more details to complete their work. But when the form has been determined then the result should be the children's own record expressed in their own words and in their own way and based upon their own observations and knowledge. Their records may be made exclusively for their own use, perhaps to bring out the significance of the observations they have made, or for communication to other children for comparison and verification or to serve as a point of departure for new experiments. In any case the integrity of the children's work should never be sacrificed to mere accuracy in the sense of recording the 'right' answer when the evidence is either lacking or contradictory. This principle embodies the spirit of scientific inquiry; indeed, as a later paragraph on the junior school suggests, the learning of facts at that age may often be less important than the path to knowledge which is followed and the attitudes that are formed on the way. There is one particular form of work which is a prelude to later work in natural history and scientific geography; this is the keeping of systematic records in which counting or measuring or weighing is undertaken. This aspect of the study is important and many suitable opportunities will arise in the junior school. These exercises should be exacting at all stages and should often involve more than the mere counting. The simple weather records kept by an infant might be matched at the top of the junior school by pupils working out and graphing the mean temperature for a week, plotting the amount of rainfall, picking out the prevailing winds, describing the kinds of clouds and comparing the weather with that of a village on the other side of [page 293] the hills. This work should show steady progress corresponding to the age and ability of the children. Many young children when they come to the nursery school know little outside their home and its immediate surroundings, their school and the journey to and from school. What the teacher can do is to plan an environment both in the school and in the playground and garden which will give the children the fullest opportunity to explore an abundance of living and non-living material. A beginning can be made by setting up and maintaining aquaria and vivaria, by displaying flowers, twigs and berries attractively in season, and by growing seeds and bulbs. The children themselves should play their part both in providing and in caring for a continually changing nature table. In addition children will learn a great deal about the qualities of materials such as sand, water, wood and clay by handling them, through manipulating everyday things like sieves, funnels and a variety of other utensils and receptacles; and through playing with toys in orthodox and in unorthodox ways. In the garden children will learn much about the living things which surround them. At this stage, although no attempt is made to teach natural history, children enjoy growing plants for themselves, watching, feeding and playing with their pets, and talking about what they see and do. In these ways and through the helpful comments of adults and by listening to stories, children learn a great deal about the world around them. In the infant school this type of exploration will be continued and extended. The infant stage is a time of getting to know objects by name, of receiving a multitude of impressions, of constant repetition and expression. As far as living things are concerned, this is a critical time for determining whether a child's attitude towards them will be fearful or fearless, cruel or kind. In addition to the range of things familiar in the nursery, there is a place in the infant school for a variety of everyday objects such as magnets, magnifying glasses, mirrors, clockwork and other toys. Through handling these things children will learn a little of their different properties. They will no doubt discover [page 294] that some things are heavy and others light, some heavier and some lighter than others; and that some objects float in water and others sink. They will discover the difference in feel of, say, wood and metal, and will become aware of variations in such properties as colour, shape, texture and balance. At this age children's observations and comments reveal a widespread interest in how animals behave and in how things work; their interest is mainly in things that live and move. In the garden, through sowing and tending their plants and through feeding and cleaning their pets, their knowledge of living things will be extended and the idea of preserving life rather than destroying it will be fostered. Walks in fields, woods or meadows, visits to farms, parks, railway stations, or other places of interest in the vicinity are further means of extending the children's knowledge of the neighbourhood. Visits, which at this stage are usually to places near at hand, should generally be carefully prepared. This does not preclude the necessity of taking advantage of unexpected opportunities which may be lost if not seized immediately. For example, a visit may be made to the farm to see the newly born lambs or foal, to the river to see the first salmon leaping after the autumn rains, or to the park to examine some bird or animal tracks in the snow and perhaps to find those of a squirrel and so dispel the idea that these animals hibernate throughout the winter. The need for reference material will soon be felt. It should not be a substitute for first-hand study but should serve to supplement and stimulate the children's own observations, and, at the same time, encourage habits of reading both for information and pleasure. In its simplest form, the reference material can comprise collections of pictures, specimens, photographs and drawings. Simple maps, the globe and models all have their place in the infant school and, though for young children these will be very simple, they should be the normal and familiar apparatus of learning. As soon as children begin to read, the range may be widened to include simple though accurate and well illustrated books, perhaps in the first place compiled by children and teacher. Throughout the primary school, and particularly in the earliest stages, children want to talk about their interests and discoveries. They also paint and model and, as they grow older, they rely increasingly on short written statements framed in their own words and, no doubt, illustrated. [page 295] (a) Geography The field of geography for children in the junior school lies both in the immediate environment and in many other parts of the world beyond. These two aspects can be considered in turn. (i) The study of the locality A study of the locality has at least two main merits. In the first place there is often a particular intensity about children's awareness of the district in which they are brought up. Its phenomena tend to be thought of in a proprietary manner - 'our woods, our streets, our barn', and, well used, this interest provides an excellent starting point for many themes and inquiries. Secondly, a study of the locality can - and should - be based very largely on first-hand experience. This makes a far more vivid and memorable impression than any second-hand account could do, and helps to make more real and intelligible much that can be learnt only vicariously. Thus the deep absorption which most children show in watching a stream blocked up and ponded back by floating logs, and their own participation in strengthening the little dam and in feeling the rush of the water through their fingers, give at least some basis for comprehending something of the purpose and power of the Assuan Dam or Sukkur Barrage. What they have experienced at first hand of the ponding back of the tiny lake brings nearer to their understanding the broadened Nile and Indus above their massive concrete walls. Acquaintance with a neighbouring Devon farm, including the size of the fields and the number of animals and the crops on each field, may help children from Exeter to acquire an accurate picture of a farm in the Fens or in the basin of the Murray-Darling. If this kind of direct contact is accompanied, as it should be, with conversation between teacher and children, asking and answering questions in easy give and take, the children's geographical vocabulary should make sound progress and such technical terms as delta, ford, escarpment, clay, sandstone, port, market garden or arable farm, should acquire gradually a more precise meaning. First-hand experience is often sufficiently stimulating to provoke further investigations. For example, children who have found sea shells or crystals in familiar rocks may well go on to [page 296] delve in other quarries and to search in books or museums to find out more about what they have seen or collected. A class visit to a fishing port might create an interest in fishing that could lead to studies of fishing in other continents, and fire lighting on a school excursion might incidentally give rise to a lesson on primitive fire lighting throughout the world. (ii) The study of other parts of the world The teacher's object here is to build up in the children's minds knowledge, as true and vivid as he can, of what other lands look like, of what it is like to live and work there. His greatest asset is his own experience of travel, and it is fortunate for the children in primary schools that an increasing number of teachers, whether as students, or later in life, have been to foreign lands. He should draw fully on this experience in his geography teaching for, suitably illustrated, it is likely to carry a sense of reality and immediacy, next only to first-hand experience for the children themselves. Failing actual travel, a teacher is fortunate if his reading has made other realms familiar to him with all the variety and detail of life in them which the textbooks so frequently omit. He will not hesitate to use and to read to the children suitable passages from the many excellent travellers' accounts which are now available and which he himself has enjoyed. Good pictures and photographs, film-strips, cine-films and broadcasts provide vicarious experience approaching reality, though only through imagination and the memory of some related personal experience can children realise such important elements of living as desert heat or the characteristic odours of breaking glacier water and of hot pine woods. And, short of first-hand knowledge, it is hard to convey to others the impact on body and mind of the light and colour of southern Europe, of the prairie blizzards or of the heavy dampness of the jungle, though reading can do much. It is important to realise that visual and other aids need discussion and reading to fill out the experience to which they contribute. The sound film, broadcasts and gramophone records can give some idea of natural sounds, and can, moreover, bring the songs and speech of other peoples to the ears of the children. Whenever possible, the characteristic arts and crafts should also be made part of the life of other peoples. Models and specimens are useful and, in some areas, may be borrowed from museums as well as seen [page 297] there. They can be employed not only to illustrate what has already been accepted or discussed, but more often as a starting point for an investigation. (iii) Stories and travellers' tales Stories set in other lands are a valuable source of information for children as for adults, and often give as vivid a sense of reality as do travellers' accounts. Stories used for this purpose should be accurate, not only in general impressions, but also in detail, since it is often detail which particularly interests a child and which is carried in memory to later years. In a story woven round the children of South China, for example, one should find the people clad in the clothes, eating the food and playing the games of South China - even if possible, of a specific part of South China. Traditional stories, also, are often invaluable, for their own inherent excellence as stories as well as for the vivid geographical background they frequently provide. A word of warning is, however, required. Whatever the story, care is needed lest the picturesque alone seize the interest of the children and they be left with an unbalanced picture. A surprising number of children appear to have the impression that all dwellers in the equatorial forests are pygmies, that Eskimos live only in igloos and that the western states of America are still ravaged by wars of cowboys and Red Indians. Of other aspects of life in these areas, and of recent changes, they are often unaware. Stories of the remote and legendary places of the earth will fire their imaginations; the deserts of Arabia, and Antarctica, the dense forests of the Amazon, the Himalayas, the prairies and Rio, all spell romance and adventure. It would indeed be sad if in the course of learning geography the fascination of such names and all that they connote should be lost in the dull generalisations of school textbooks. In children, as in adults, accounts of the great power and energy in nature seldom fail to awaken interest - power which at times has overwhelmed men in great catastrophes, such as that of Krakatoa or of the floods of the Yellow River or of the East and West Lynn. But less tragic phenomena are no less impressive - the gradual building up of the deltas of the Mississippi or Tigris-Euphrates, the Victoria Falls, the occurrence of sea shells on Alpine peaks, or the sea pounding and crumbling a headland to fashion the Needles. [page 298] This power of Nature challenges man; and man's answer to it can be enthralling to children. There is no dearth of true stories of high courage; Scott's struggle against Antarctic blizzards and the last sacrifice of Captain Oates; Sir Vivian Fuchs' journey across the South Pole; Heyerdahl and Livingstone in the Pacific and in Africa; Hillary and Tensing on Everest are but a few of the dramatic examples to which counterparts can be found from Ulysses to Freya Stark. For children it is not hard to understand Mallory's answer when asked why he would risk his life to climb Everest: 'Because it's there'. Children can also be led to enjoy the less adventurous, but no less important, of man's efforts at resistance to, or cooperation with, Nature. The waters nourished by the snows of the Himalaya have been harnessed and distributed over the dry Punjab, so that where fifty years ago there were only nomads feeding their camels and goats on thorny bushes there are now green ribbons of grass and trees, settled agriculture, and large prosperous towns. Niagara, powerful and wonderful though she still is, has been made to yield for man's use light and energy needed by New York and Toronto. The Andes have been pierced at 12,000 feet beneath the Uspallata Pass and at even greater heights in Peru. And, just as the desert has been made moist and fertile, so in contrast, along the coast of Holland, large parts of the sea have been drained of their water and turned into rich farmlands. Thus to learn geography effectively, so that it awakens their interest and spurs them on to find out more, so that it gives them the satisfaction of richer imaginings and more coherent understandings of the world they live in, children need full scope for their curiosity, for appreciation of splendour and power in nature, and, not least, for what man has endured and achieved in his endeavours to explore the world and to control and use its vast resources. (iv) The use of the globe, maps and books The globe, the most realistic representation of the earth as a whole, should be available to the children at all stages. Though no juniors will be ready for the mathematics needed to understand all it could tell them, it should acquire increasing meaning for them through gradual explanation and repeated use. From frequent reference to it, the children should become familiar with the relative grouping, size and shapes of land masses and [page 299] oceans, and know something of the great land and sea routes, and the more direct air routes crossing lands and seas where neither rail nor ship can go. Further, the use of the globe, combining with observations which the pupils make of such phenomena as the varying length of sun shadows, the varying length of day and night, and the apparent movements of the sun and stars, will help in leading to a conception of the earth as a spinning sphere revolving round the sun and to some of the implications of this conception. Since geography is so essentially concerned with place and spatial distribution, maps are an indispensable source of information and should become a source of increasing interest and delight. Facility in their interpretation is a skill which can grow with the familiarity acquired by constantly looking at and using them, as well as through direct instruction. Some deliberate instruction may, indeed, be necessary but, generally speaking, map reading is best picked up in the course of using maps rather than through learning it as an isolated skill. If children are to get a clear understanding of what maps represent, they need first to compare them with the landscape itself and, later, to compare them with oblique and vertical photographs. If, for example, eight year old juniors have constant access to 25 inch and 6 inch maps of their locality (25 inch if in an urban area), or of a farm they are visiting, or a river they are exploring, much skill is mastered incidentally. They should soon come to recognise such shapes as those of the neighbouring fields, and, later, scale and direction would also acquire meaning. As their skill develops, they should make more serious use of 2½ inch and 1 inch maps in which conventions become increasingly necessary and detail is omitted. These should be used as reference material for finding out more about their locality, their holiday haunts, or the small regions at home or abroad which are being studied. Such experience with large and medium scale maps is an excellent basis for the use of the much smaller scale maps generally found in atlases. Both large scale maps and atlases give such pleasure to children and they can learn so much from them incidentally, both of skill and knowledge, that they should always be readily accessible in the classroom and, in the case of larger atlases and maps, in the school library. It might be expected that many children will have some understanding of scale before they leave the junior school, and that here there will be close links with mathematics. [page 300] The making of maps is also, for children, one of the best means of expression. Their first efforts may be little more than rough solid models or else pictures showing where they have been and what they saw. These often develop into simple pictorial plans or sketches. With older pupils in the junior school they may be based on the measurement of distances and recognised conventions, though not essential, may often usefully be employed. At all stages there are facts and relationships which are best described by maps, though individual pupils will make differing use of them. A few children can also go one stage further and employ, for such features as meanders, slopes of escarpments or the position of fossil beds, the useful allied skill of field sketching. Books are of first importance. Both text and pictures should be geographically accurate, as well as attractive to and suitable for the children. Some teachers find a graded series of textbooks of use; but more prefer to have available books in much greater variety than the purchase of class sets would allow. Thus, individual copies, or small sets of three or four books, with such reference material as encyclopaedias, gazetteers and geographical magazines, increasingly fill the bookshelves in the classroom. Such provision is essential if the children are to pursue geographical inquiries for themselves, individually or in groups, and if the abler children are to have adequate opportunity for learning as much as they are capable of understanding. (v) Recording Reference has been made on page 291 both to the ways in which children may record the results of their own observations and to the purposes which such records may serve. The work in geography affords many opportunities for accurate observation and description and, in a simple way, for relating cause and effect. For example, children may be encouraged to show on a map precisely how a farmer uses his fields, the distribution of certain factories or certain trees, plants or animals; or they may make a regular record of winds, clouds, rainfall, temperature, places where snow lasts longest, flood levels, spring lines. Staged experiments such as the making of a river delta in a sand tray or the creation of 'ocean' currents in a tank may also be systematically described. The scrap-book is another form of record to which children [page 301] turn readily in the junior school. It summarises information on some chosen topic which they have obtained for themselves from a variety of sources. These books, full of pictures drawn, copied or cut from journals and newspapers, and with extracts often copied from books, can be of great value. The children are often deeply interested and exercise much ingenuity in finding their material. They may ask many relevant questions, in school and out, and may write up or illustrate what they know with imagination, and altogether work very hard in putting together a creditable collection of information. But if, as frequently happens, the children receive too little guidance in selection, too little teaching in the art of summarising what they have learnt from a book and in arranging what they have collected, their work shows little advance as they get older and, as a result, little use can be made of it. Their books could be the subject of discussion with other groups of children, as well as with the teacher; they could become, as they are in some schools, a self-made reference library, and they could be used in revision of the term's or the year's work. It is important to see that a reasonable amount of lasting knowledge accrues to the children from their inquiries, and that their making of books shows some progression in selection and arrangement and in their ability to deal with material in relation to a purpose. (vi) The scheme of work and the outcome of the course The different topics studied by children in geography depend, as in other subjects, on their ages, abilities, interests and needs. These should be considered individually, so far as possible, with a general scheme of work for the class and the school as a whole. Home background and life out of school will exert their influence; what is appropriate for children who rarely move far from home may differ from what is best for those who do. On the other hand some knowledge is appropriate to whole groups or classes and, at some time during the course, to the school as a whole. The Head and teachers of each school, then, do not confine their work within a rigid syllabus; but considering what the environment and the experience and interests of the staff have to offer of most value, they plan accordingly. By allowing a large measure of initiative to the children, the teacher can go a long way towards making full use of their particular interest and suiting the work to their levels of ability. For these reasons, [page 302] individual work, or work in small groups, has become increasingly common in schools. The stimulus deriving from important current events or from the geographical association of work in other branches of the curriculum should be fully used. It might be added that what children learn in school is all the more effective if they see it in the context of contemporary happenings so that they realise that geography, like history, is always, and is still, being made. What the children have learnt by the time they leave the junior school must necessarily vary greatly from child to child and school to school. It is not possible here to do more than indicate in general terms what kind of experiences in geography most of the children will have had and what they might be expected to have gained from them, but in each school the Head should have a clear idea of what he expects from the children and this should be shown in the scheme of work. They might well have a lively and intimate acquaintance with their own immediate environment. Children in the country should, for example, know something of the kind and position of woods, streams, hills and other features of the landscape. They might know something of the life on local farms and of the crops grown, and have some acquaintance with local roads and railways and be aware of the distance and direction of nearby villages and towns. Weather conditions and local building materials, as known from observation, might be suitable fare for both town and country children. Children living in a town should also be expected to know, mainly from personal experience, such things as the main roads in and out of the town, the markets, the kind and position of factories, the rivers, canals, bridges, castles, old walls and railway stations. At the same time the sensitive teacher will lead pupils towards an appreciation also of those immaterial things that go to make up the personality of their district. A child in Ely, for example, should be able to picture an island dominated by the towers of a cathedral which sent out its chimes at sunset over the marshes: and he should know of Hereward and the Causeway over which he was betrayed. Children in the north will know of Border forays and Peel Towers; those in the west of Welsh Marches and ancient hill top villages; those in Nottingham of the men of Forest Green as well as of cigarettes and lace; those in Cornwall and Devon of pirates and admirals and Merlin as well as of tin and china clay. And [page 303] each county has its treasury of folk songs and ballads and its wealth of history tied up in the names of its villages, fields and families and in the position of its administrative boundaries. Of these things too the children might know something. For other parts of their own country, many children should have built up comparable though less intimate pictures of a few small regions using second-hand material as well as school journeys or holiday visits for the purpose; in some cases specific topics, such as coal-mining or fishing, might have been studied instead of a small area. These detailed studies, as the children grow older, should have fallen into place in filling out a picture of their country as a whole. They should form a basis for building up a general picture of the main features of its shape and relief, its weather, its principal towns and counties and its important industries. There are also things intangible which are significant to their country as a whole and not merely to one small area. The lower Thames is the hub of England as well as of London; the hunting shires form the 'pastoral heart of England', not merely of the midlands; the white cliffs of Dover have significance beyond the bounds of Kent. At the same time as the children were building up pictures of their immediate district and of their country, they should also have been given similar pictures of other parts of the world, which, by discussion and by careful choice of reading matter and illustration, had been made alive with vivid detail. This can have been done if the regions or topics have been kept sufficiently small. There is in this spotlighting of particular places and topics less likelihood of over-generalisation in the interests of simplification. These imaginative expeditions overseas, leading to isolated patches of knowledge, should have been accompanied by frequent reference to the globe as well as to an atlas. Mainly in this way, the pupils should have begun to fill in the intervening gaps and to recognise and be able to name certain patterns on the surface of the globe such as the major distribution of land, water, mountains, rivers, chief countries and cities, vegetation and some peoples. It might also be appropriate for some of the older and abler juniors to have given more cohesion to their subject by studying distributions such as those of certain animals, trees and crops throughout the world and to have become acquainted in a simple way with such consequences of a spinning and revolving globe as day and night, winter and summer, and [page 304] differences of time: in fact to have begun some study of systematic geography. Behind all this, transcending national and geographical differences, is the idea of common humanity which has given rise to the various specialised agencies - Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organisation (WHO), etc - which exist to help all who need it and which embody man's concern for man. Interest and value may be added to many a geography lesson by appropriate references to the idea and its expression. (b) Natural History (i) The scope of natural history in the junior school The kind of work described as suitable for nurseries and infant schools should provide an admirable foundation on which to build a junior school course. Here too the work arises in the first place from the children's experience which increases in range year by year. The environment in which the children live, the books they read, the toys they play with and the film, radio and television programmes they see and hear can suggest a variety of subjects for investigation both biological and physical. It follows that natural history in the primary school should be generously interpreted. It should be a first-hand study embracing both the living and the non-living material which can be found in children's surroundings. It might include, for example, some weather study, geology and mechanics, some stories about plant and animal life in other parts of the world, simple astronomy, and an acquaintance with some of the outstanding figures and some of the more dramatic events in the long story of science. In the past too little time, and perhaps too little thought, have been given to a course ranging as widely as this, and the traditional emphasis on the study of living things together with a sense of inadequate knowledge on the part of the teacher has diverted his attention from topics of elementary physical science. It is for the teacher to emphasise topics which are suitable both to the age of the children and to the ends he has in view. Above all else he should be concerned to foster an appreciation of nature and at the same time to develop in children a questioning attitude of mind and a readiness to find out for themselves. Whilst no one will belittle the acquisition of factual information from other sources than first-hand experience, the [page 305] learning of facts in natural history and other branches of science at this age is often less important than the path to knowledge which is followed and the attitudes that are formed on the way. The knowledge which a child acquires from a direct study of nature is likely to take firm root. Moreover, by trying to devise experiments to answer his own questions he is, in a simple but fundamental way, learning some of the elements of scientific method, and his work takes on a new integrity. It is not possible to divorce the work out of doors, whether in the garden or in the immediate surroundings of the school or on expeditions further afield, from the work in the classroom, since one springs from the other. In this work the teacher's foremost role is that of guide and co-worker, but there are many occasions when a talk from the teacher is needed to direct observation and stimulate enquiry. Talks of this kind are usually dictated by immediate needs and serve to answer questions and to give knowledge for which the children are ready. In order to work in this way, the teacher needs to be an enthusiast, humble before the wonders of the world, and able to explain without explaining away. No less important is the unbiased critical mind which can recognise a problem, is willing to tackle it and is quick in improvisation. The ability to ask apposite questions and the patience to wait while children fumble for the answer or make articulate their own questioning are of equal significance. Children often know much more than they can express readily in words. To help them to learn from contact with living things and from handling, observing and experimenting with a variety of inanimate objects requires greater knowledge and skill on the part of the teacher than does a more stereotyped course of work in which the teacher arranges everything beforehand, leaving no problems for the children to solve. Ideally this work demands a classroom where the children have room to move about, where there is a small work bench, some shelves or tables on which to keep living things, and where inanimate things can be examined and simple experiments performed. In short the work bench and shelves take the place of the customary nature table and include examples drawn from physical as well as biological materials. If such a 'general interest table' is to be successful in stimulating enquiry it must be attractive and must afford children the opportunities to handle the things displayed and to find information for themselves. It [page 306] is essential that what is on the table should be changed frequently and that there should be progress in its treatment. For example, young children delight in gathering dandelions and in 'telling the time' from a dandelion clock, but older children are capable of much more. The question 'why are dandelions so common and so difficult to remove from a lawn?' might be the starting point for a practical investigation. Such an investigation might include observations on seed dispersal, germination and an examination of the underground storage organs. Whilst young children enjoy playing with their pets, the care of pets by older children could be accompanied by records of food consumption, growth, changes in weight and the birth of young. Such records will involve a considerable amount of reading, writing and calculation. In addition practical problems will arise such as the construction of simple homes to accommodate the family that is growing in both number and size. (ii) The beginnings of physical science Children can continue to discover the properties and behaviour of a wide variety of non-living things and, becoming increasingly sensitive to their similarities and differences, begin to classify and arrange these things according to the properties they exhibit. Thus, beginning from an understanding of such words as hard, soft, heavy, light, rough and smooth, which they gained in the infant school, they might go on to appreciate the qualities described as rigid, pliable, malleable, elastic, brittle, dense, opaque, translucent and pungent. They can distinguish variations within each of these qualities; for example, they can arrange a number of springs in order of springiness or several metals in order of hardness, having first devised their own experiments to detect the differences, that is to say, having planned to make their observations under controlled conditions. Work of this kind, which may well arise incidentally through the study of other topics, indeed of other subjects, requires children to think about the nature of the problems they want to solve or the questions they want to answer. Accurate observation through the use of all their senses and a sensibility of language are both part of its price and part of its reward. It is, perhaps, when this stage is reached that children can readily appreciate, for example, the magnifying glass and the thermometer as aids to their sense, in other words as aids to their powers of discrimination. Further, [page 307] if given time, they can begin to distinguish clearly between evidence which is relevant and that which is irrelevant to their simple inquiries. Although a great deal of work has been done to investigate the development of children's powers of reasoning and their interpretation of natural phenomena, there is still great scope in this field for the teacher of junior children who is prepared to study his pupils, their questions and their explanations in natural history. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that in physical science, for example, the potential achievements of the ablest pupils in the junior school have yet to be revealed. The gaps in their knowledge are sometimes mistaken for mere stupidity when in fact, as most parents of argumentative children know, their powers of reasoning at the age of ten or eleven are often well developed. Some of the most stimulating topics for inclusion in the junior school course are probably those to be found in mechanics. For instance, the question might be asked 'What is the easiest way to pull a nail out of a piece of wood?' Different circumstances demand different methods, but experiment and discussion might make clear the value of a pivot and the function of a lever, and might show that the relative length of its arms is important. This might in turn throw light upon what children have probably already discovered by themselves, namely that it is easier to cut a piece of wire with good pliers if it is placed close to the pivot. In all these investigations the results would be observed and recorded in qualitative rather than quantitative terms. But for children who want to state their conclusions with greater precision, these and similar experiments may provide opportunities to extend their ideas of a scale and the relation of one scale-reading to another - ideas which they will have met earlier in handling weights and rulers. The problem of how to balance weights on a pivoted bar might lead to the discovery of a method of comparing weights. There are endless physical problems associated with children's lives and interests; for example problems arising from the use of small electric batteries, the elements of magnetism, lenses, pulleys and gear wheels, and from flotation, inspired perhaps by the sailing of model boats or by a visit to the docks and an interest in the loading of cargoes and the Plimsoll line, from simple work on heat and temperature, elementary studies of air and water, the weather and the soil. All these are but some of the topics which impinge on the lives of [page 308] most children. Such topics call for simple practical investigation even though the conclusions drawn from them may be tentative and incomplete, and may seldom lead to generalisations. The ideas to which investigations of this kind give rise must accumulate in children's minds before they can be systematised into a coherent body of knowledge that is recognised by the name of a 'subject' as adults understand the word. Premature attempts to build up systems of knowledge on inadequate experience have often impoverished the quality of the children's work and given it a spurious maturity. Much of the apparatus needed for science in junior schools can be improvised, and it should be on a scale large enough to afford evidence which is convincing. Moreover, to be convinced, children often need to see the same thing happen over and over again. Generalisations are made too often from the evidence of a single experience and too seldom from a comparison of repeated trials or with the results obtained by others. Verification of observation is an essential step even in the simplest experiment. The topics chosen for study should afford the children many simple and convincing experiences of that kind. In making his selection the teacher will want to avoid those which would be best left for serious study in the secondary school. (iii) The study of living things The topics chosen for nature study will vary from season to season. Even in congested areas the study of natural history is not impossible. With a little encouragement, children will bring into school specimens collected during their weekend walks and excursions. In view of the amazing variety and prodigality of Nature, there is a strong case for introducing as many different examples as possible. Occasions will arise when it may be desirable to reintroduce the same material for a different purpose, but in each case the treatment will be different. For example, infants will enjoy the stickiness of horse chestnut buds or the velvety feel of ash buds, but juniors might note such features as bud arrangement and leaf scars, and recognise the twigs as part of the tree they know. They will be interested in determining the age of trees and twigs, or in the uses of wood, willow for cricket bats, and alder for gardening clogs. Autumn provides a wealth of coloured leaves, fungi, berries and other fruits. With young juniors, observations at this time [page 309] of year on the activities of wild life, of the farmer and the gardener provide a useful comparison with the preparations for winter in the home. Winter affords a good opportunity for investigating and collecting the 'crumbs' which animals leave when they feed. Children can find, for example, the torn cones left by squirrels seeking the seeds. Other traces of animals can be equally rewarding and may reveal to the observer less well known facts about the habits of animals. Hairs adhering to barbed wire were in one case the first clue that badgers lived in the neighbourhood. This led to a search for their tracks and eventually resulted in the locating of the sett. Through patient watching near the sett, individual children saw both parents and cubs and were led to the conclusion that, counter to the information gleaned from a book, a badger does not hibernate all through the winter. During the course of a nature expedition in early spring the discovery of a collection of small bleached bones on a narrow plank across a stream revealed a kingfisher's feeding perch. A group of children were subsequently rewarded by the sight of a kingfisher fishing, feeding and nesting, and learnt much of its habits. In spring the early flowers and insects, germinating tree seedlings and collections of liverworts and mosses, offer many possibilities for variation on the nature table. Summer provides an abundance of life affording many opportunities for investigations by individuals and groups of children. In carrying out this work, equipment need present few problems since much of this can be improvised and, in the case of older juniors, can be made by the children themselves. It is perhaps worth noting that two or three small aquaria (where the ratio of surface to volume is large) prove more useful than one large tank, and that a variety of smaller insect breeding cages is more valuable than one large one. (iv) The use of the garden The value of a garden cannot be over-stressed. In urban areas, where sites are restricted, window boxes, miniature gardens in disused sinks or tubs, or roof gardens might offer a partial substitute. Where land is available, the place and function of a garden in a primary school need careful consideration. The layout and design of the garden will, to some extent, be determined by size, aspect, contours and locality, but in every [page 310] case the garden should be freely open to the children and form an attractive setting to the school building. The garden can be so planned that repetitive and mechanical maintenance work is reduced to a minimum, but even so adult labour will have to be employed for the heavier manual tasks. If the children are to derive the maximum enjoyment from the garden for work and play, a lawn and a hard surface area are desirable. A simple weather station, sundial, bird tables, baths and nesting boxes might well be included together with a pets' corner. If pets are to be kept at school - there is every reason why they should be - they must be kept in conditions which approximate as nearly as possible to the ideal. If it is not possible to provide such conditions then children can bring their own pets, as visitors, when occasion demands. Part of the school garden could be used to grow food for the pets. A further plot of ground might be set aside as a place in which children could carry out their own investigations and experiments. The younger children might, for example, learn to dig, sow, plant, and grow their own salad crops, and the older ones might grow some of the crops they have noticed on farms, or plant some seedling trees given to them after a visit to a forestry nursery or plantation, and they might study the soil itself. (v) Expeditions The work in the classroom and that done in the garden are complementary, and to these may be added a third branch of the work, namely that arising from expeditions to study pond life, birds, trees, flowers, hedgerows or the life on a farm. Here again outdoor work is more difficult for a town school, but is rarely impossible. In the exceptionally difficult case an extraordinary effort is justified on occasions if it brings children who are familiar only with pavements and chimneys into contact with the countryside. Towns have their parks and bomb sites, and often a not too distant green belt. Following the visit the children will want to identify the material collected and this will require a ready supply of reference books. They will want also to maintain for study the living things which they brought back to school. For example, children will learn by watching the day to day development of trout eggs, given to the class during a visit to a fish hatchery or the opening and subsequent flowering of buds, the germination of seeds, or the hatching of insect eggs [page 311] into caterpillars, the feeding, growth and skin casting of the caterpillars, followed by pupation and the final emergence of the adult insect. The finding of a queen ant with a colony of workers might lead to an interest in watching the behaviour of these animals in a formicarium. An interesting pond dipping expedition might often result in the establishment of an aquarium in order to observe more closely the habits of some of the pond dwellers. (vi) Stories and reference material Often from their first hand observation children can only discover part of the story of any plant or creature and will look to the teacher to make good the deficiencies. Children who have caught elvers swimming up estuaries will be interested to hear the amazing story of the migration of eels. Similarly children who have watched swallows nesting or heard the cuckoo will be interested in the migrations of these and other familiar birds. Stories read or told and retold should be a source of interest. Children who in one mood accumulate facts and figures, at another time want to hear of the 'purring of the great gold lion of the sun who licks us into life like the lioness her cubs', and there need be no incompatibility between the careful observation of the habits of pet rabbits or mice and a thorough enjoyment of Toad and Brer Fox. Whilst there is a place for story and imagination there can be none for insincerity and sentimentality. There is need for a generous supply of reference material comprising accurate illustrations, good photographs and books all readily available to individuals seeking information on questions arising from day to day work. Informative books should be accurate both in text and illustration and contain nothing that children will later have to unlearn. They should be in such a form that children can readily find their way about them and should give information in a simple and straightforward way. They should make demands on the children and help them to develop their powers of observation. In selecting books for younger children it is useful to remember that they are often interested on the one hand in topics which are remote and far away such as the sun and stars, rare animals and animals of other lands, and on the other hand in everything which concerns themselves, their pets, their homes and their gardens. Imagination is strong throughout childhood and older children [page 312] can enjoy biographies of famous scientists such as Fabre, Pasteur, Lister, Jenner and Madam Curie. They may also be stimulated by hearing short extracts from the diaries of such exact observers as Gilbert White, John Clare and Charles Darwin. (vii) The outcome of the course In the course of all this work it is obvious that the children will have covered a wide range of topics, and care is needed to ensure that the treatment of these topics is progressive as the children pass through the school. When they leave the primary school children will not all have learnt a prescribed collection of facts, but most should have become interested in the world around them and have assimilated a body of living knowledge. They should know their own district well and should appreciate something of the variety of plant and animal life and of the various ways in which animals and plants live. They should have been introduced to the activities of living creatures and, through the care of pets, should have learnt something of hygiene and the laws of health. The abler children should have begun to relate one to another some of the apparently isolated studies they have undertaken in the course of the work, and this may have led them towards some important generalisations concerning such biological principles as feeding, growth, reproduction, death and decay. They should also have become increasingly aware of the place of man in their local community, and through simple biographies have had a glimpse of a few great scientific discoverers and benefactors. The scope of what is undertaken may vary from school to school, and locality to locality; but in a technological age it is perhaps salutary to remind ourselves that, though it is right and necessary that children, in their own way, should know what they mean when they talk of sound barriers, jets and diesels, and should have some intelligent apprehension of the mechanical world around them, it is also essential that they should feel a friendly and continuing interest in the natural world, in which after all, lie the roots of their own being. Throughout this chapter it has been assumed that most children will enter with zest into certain experiences to satisfy their [page 313] curiosity, their sense of wonder and beauty and their growing need to know the reason why. The course in the primary school can be said to be successful if the children have come to regard ignorance as a challenge to inquiry in which their own observations play a major part and if they have learnt to support and amplify these observations by referring to books and other sources of information. Their observations should have become increasingly careful and accurate and their recording of what they have discovered should have been honest. But even in normal children enthusiasm has often to be skilfully and patiently aroused and still more skilfully sustained; and it has to be aroused in a group of individuals where each reacts differently from his neighbour. If he is to succeed the teacher must himself be sensitive to wonder and beauty and must retain a fresh and curious mind, because the spirit of inquiry is fostered by infection rather than advice. 
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